Mercy Rule

KegHead · Two Star Guru

Mercy Rule

johnc · Grand Poobah

What about a 4th option..........a joint decision by both managers?

I have a unique persective on this subject this year...............i played on the 35 Braves who got mercied several times and on the 45 Marlins who have been on the good side a few times.

Early in the year it was just fun to be on the field...................toward the end of the year when we were beaten soundly by the Mets with basically no chance of competing i was happy to see the game end. It was so bad that in the first inning of game 2 of the doubleheader with the Mets they were already holding back and not stealing, advancing on past balls etc................it just wasn't much fun.

When the Marlins won 19-1 or 11-0 it wasn't as bad since we were on the good side but it still left something to be desired.

In all of these instances ending the game was probably the right thing to do........and it would make sense for both managers to be involved not just the losing manager.

The_Hurricane · Grand Poobah

The mercy rule is not the problem. Address the competitive imbalance and there would be no need for the mercy rule.

johnc · Grand Poobah

Rob........give us a quick preview of your plan.

It seems like it would be very difficult to do without altering the idea of guys playing with their friends....which in my mind is a big part of why / how teams are formed and stay together......i (along with many others) would hate to be forced to play on a specific team.

The split division scenario works pretty well in the 45's.

The whole thing may be a non issue if open free agency comes down ..... there will be lots of movement and the landscape will change dramatically.

QJensen · Grand Poobah

I just talked to a manager in the 25's and he said to me.........."Q what if we are beating your Rockies 11-1 in the 5th" You then decide you want to keep playing. Then we as a team are going to try to score as many runs as we can. We will keep stealing bases and do whatever we can to keep pushing the run total higher.

I know that Baseball has the unwritten rule to call the dogs off after you get a big lead. But will teams now try and run the score up because they dont want to play longer?

Maybe John C is right that a 4th option is to have both managers decide?

We even have the idea that Rob Currier mentioned and thats making teams fair. John C did bring up a good point that many guys who joined this league to play with friends will not want this and may not play in the league anymore because of this.

Also, with player movement possible this could allow all teams to get better. With a good manager who can get good players then I dont see why being competitive is such a problem in the 35's.

ARTIEG · Veteran Member

I idea of free agency is not the issue. If a player wants out what is the purpose of keeping an unhappy player. It does no one any good. Now we must understand that a player upon leaving, especially a good player could just as well go to a very good team and make them that much stronger.

I have proposed for a number of years that the only way to balance this out is to have any new player coming into the league or a pool of players coming in must play for at least two
years with the worst teams who pick them according to their records and there are no options . They either join those teams or find another league. If we don't move in this direction I'll just keep seeing posts and/or hearing the same complaints I have heard for
many years on this subject.

Our leadership must take a stance and hold to it.

Artie G.

jreel · Grand Poobah

we operated for years under a set of organizing principles. that we wanted competitve baseball unfettered by playing rules as much as possible and we gave a GM certain un-restrained rights to recruit as he wished and manage as he thought best. it wasn't until a few years ago that some managers took this freedom to form teams with other less competive goals in mind. In short they were formed to give guys a place to play where none may have existed on the more competively formed teams. Often these are the teams that don't excel in the standings and as a result lack the attraction to keep the better talent to move up in the standings.
Some teams do move up but do so by building off of attrition and adding better talent. The 35 Pirates are good example. the old 30+ Belmonts Cafe , Adirondack and Avis other good examples. they had an expressed mission to get better. Others expressing the GM freedom differently have had mixed results. And i assume its mostly palitible as competing in the larger sense was a often a secondary motive. Many of these franchises atttained their goals of providing a place to play for many , serving as place for like minded less compettive among us, or in the old 40 Peppers putting egalitarian concerns of playing time and learning the game over any other motive. I don't mean to imply that gys don't want to win. I never met such an indiviudal. I think whats being stated is that winning at all or more dear cost is out of the question.
Also as we create divsions and teams in the 45 and 55's i see the dichotomy expressed more vividly. It might be too that a manager is less inlcined to change a teams culture even if it means the team continues on a less than .500 result. Often I hear that depsite their desire to get better they cannot; recruit, retain, nor manage differently to get there. I can see there is somethng aobut the way you start that sets the stage for the future.
Now I think we are at a stage where we are just addressing parity , beyond the raiding rule approach we have applied really just to stablize teams. parity has been just a conversation and one that we first expereimented with when we had a dual playoff sytem in the 38's+ just a couple years ago. it had mixed reviews at best. and was voted out the following year in favor of expanded playoffs. Inthe 45's the conversation was deeper and more thoughtful. there a the splits was rightdown the middle in team "culture" and was reflected in the winning percentage the same way. much debate and airing out and compromising as given us the sophsiticated unbalanced schedule and tow tiered playoff format now inplace. an Expereiment. to go further would be to split the down the middle, maybe interplay, but then hold 2 playoff groupings where the lower and upper teams found a champions. ( some talk was had about letting the winning lower team champ decide to come up or toahve the least higher team go down to the lower group the following season. ) I am an advocate for this appraoch when we have enough teams to make it vaible. the national tournments have age divsions with sub divsions based on comparative talent. sometiems five deep in this talent based sub divsions. teams migrate where they think they have shot or where they will have fun. It has worked to no serious complaint other than occasional sandbaggging for over 20 years.
I believe too that free agency will enable the quicker foramtion of bothtypes of teams and will quicken the paceof this arguement as well. beyond allthis we as a league must decide what we are here for . to provide a place for every players who can reasonalbe play ball, or to provide a palce for onlythose that can compete at a higher level.

acemics · Senior Member

Before the league started, a group of us gathered to discuss what it was we wanted to accomplish - recreational or competetive ball. We discussed minimum playing time for each player which we ruled out. But we agreed to play 9 innings in part to offer every player the opportunity to get some innings in. I believe the batting rules of allowing as many players to bat is an extension of this philosopy. I concur with John that there are those teams that although there is a desire to win, their emphasis is to allow everyone to play - regardless of athletic ability. If that is their goal and losses continue to mount, who am I to disagree with them. If after years of lossing, they still enjoy the game for the sport that it is - fine. If however, they want to be more competetive, they will seek out better talent.

It was not the league's intent to provide equal opportunity to all players. With that being said, asking players to pony up a few hundred dollars and buy a uniform to play 2 innnings a game is not fair. I've always said that every manager (GM) should tell each player what he sees as their role before the player pays. If a player is asked to play and pays nothing, then he shouldn't have much of a beef about his playing time.

I believe that parity is the responsibility of the team - not the league.

I don't think the free agency rule will have that big an effect. For the most part, people who have wanted to leave one team for another have been permitted without hassal.

If we want parity without changing team philosophies, we should start two divisions for each league - recreational and competetive. Being realsitic, I don't think there are enough teams to do this. What we've done for my women's softball league is that we have A and B teams. The B teams play the A teams once and within your own grouping you play every team 3 times. The goal was to prevent teams from going 3-15 and players losing interest. And although this has worked reasonably well, guess what ? There are still teams going 3-15. I can go into all the pros and cons that were discussed if anyone wants to know.

It used to be that the league ran an ad for prospective players in the fall and there was a tryout with the lowest team having the first pick. Not sure if this is still being done. This helps but from my experience, the best way to beef up a team is for the existing players to seek out players.

I am in favor of the mercy rule - I've been effected on both sides...

Dennis Scimeca

-- Edited by acemics on Tuesday 18th of August 2009 10:24:41 PM

ARTIEG · Veteran Member

Dennis, the problem with having managers on losing teams finding players is twofold.

1. The managers other than raiding another team may not have knowledge of players outside the league to bring in and help.

2. Good players tend to migrate to the better teams.

You are right when you say that certain management philosophies are not about wins but playing time for their players who could not play with other teams. This presents the inbalance in games and has necessitated the Mercy Rule.

The only option when teams with losing records who want to be more competitive and face the above 2 challenges is to institute a draft program with tryouts and a mandatory 2 year period with that team.

This mandatory period allows the team the opportunity to improve and hopefully creates
a period in which the drafted player develops friendships with his new teammates and a sense of loyalty to the team. If not, he is free to play for anyone else after that 2 year period.

Artie G.

QJensen · Grand Poobah

Artie,

Please call Jim Gedney. He contacted me and would like you to call him!

Thanks

Q

The_Hurricane · Grand Poobah

IMO, the 35+ League has enough teams to try the system John Reel pointed to. Why can't we create two divisions with the "A" Division having seven teams and the "B" Division having six teams?

We could create a playoff system where the "B" Division plays only 16 regular season games and wraps up before the start of the "A" Division playoffs. The champion of the "B" division gets the #8 seed in the "A" Division playoff and gets their shot at a League Championship. That way, at least the "B" Division can say at the end of the year that they were given their shot at a league title?

We could even create a system where the "B" Division champion moves up to the "A" Division in the following year and the last place team in the "A" Divsion moves down to the "B" Division the following year. You could theoretically create a cycle where teams could try to improve on the field so they can improve their standings and try to remain in the "A" Division permanently?

As for the regular season, "A" teams would only play "A" teams and "B" teams would only play "B" teams. Perhaps you could build a couple of inter-division matchups, but that might not be necessary. That way, the "B" divsion teams may get the hope of a winning record every season and the "A" division teams get the satisfaction of knowing they won't be wasting their time with a potential mercy-rule game on any given night (I sent a breakdown of games that ended in the mercy rule to Jon Martin, Quentin Jensen, Jimmy K and Mario Arduini and the stats were alarming as to who beat whom by the mercy rule).

A system in like this in place would alleviate many of the problems with recruiting, parity and the mercy rule as well as give teams goals to build toward for the long-term.

There are flaws - to be sure - but they could certainly be worked out.

-- Edited by The_Hurricane on Wednesday 19th of August 2009 08:11:46 AM

The_Hurricane · Grand Poobah

Dennis,

I agree with nearly everything you said. I believe that ultimately the responsibility lies in the team to improve and not on the league to improve the team.

However, don't you think that with 13 teams, 2 divisions could be created? Seems to me that the sheer volume of teams in the 35's would enable a system like this. Unless you weren't talking about the 35's, in which case, I apologize.

And I agree 100% with your assessment of the mercy rule. The mercy rule needs to stay in place. IMO, a game is no longer fun when there's a lead of 10 or more runs after five innings anyway. It's not really fun for either team.

sfgiants · Hall of Famer

It's already in the rules that the trailing manager can waive the white flag after 5 innings if his team is trailing by 10 runs or more. So, essentially, you are voting to keep the rule as it now stands.

When guys come from distances (Mass and Vt.) tp play just 5 innings after they have paid a full fee is not fair to them.

If you are not having fun during one of your blowouts, which happens infrequently, then leave. What is the sacrifice here guys? An extra half hour till it gets dark? An extra hour if it doesn't? Guys on the winning end sound like elitists. Be real guys; it's baseball, and anything can happen. Deal with the infrequent 10-run game.

Geez, next you'll want to put a clock on the game.

The mission of CDMSBL was to form a baseball league for adults. It says nothing about forming a league for adults who don't want to play baseball if the score gets lopsided.

Again, I repeat, it's already in the rules that the trailing manager can waive the white flag after 5 innings if his team is trailing by 10 runs or more. So, essentially, you are voting to keep the rule as it now stands.

And when the league is restructured such as to fix the problem that allegedly creates 10-run games, you then won't have to worry about it anymore. Till then, play for what we pay for. Since CDMSBL obviously created this problem (it's already been said it needs to be fixed), why should the paying membership be penalized?

jimk

Brian24 · Member

Just a quick question to the Two Division proposal. How do you handle new teams entering the league? Who will dictate what division that team plays in. Also, on a much less important note, what about league leaders and statistics? Would they also be sorted by A and B division? Perhaps using an asterisk, e.g. *61?

Brian24 · Member

I apologize, I did not sign that.

Brian Donnelly
35 Cubs
25 Nationals

rayjdem · Guru

I believe that the Mercy call should go to the team on the losing side - if they want to quit, then stop the game. If they want to keep playing, then keep going.

As far as the 2 division thinking - that's a tough one to set up and maintain. A team that wants to move up from the "B" would have it take at least a year. They would have to recruit better players to a "B" team and then"win" their division. Don't see it working out for a team trying to do that very often, especially if they are fighting the "A" teams for the better players to start with.

Also, the "A" division team moving down might still be better then the "B" winner - you force them to go down?

What I want to say is that if a team wants to get better under the present system, they can. If they don't - then they can take the beatings - it's up to them. I don't necessarily care about parity - I care more about the ability of a team to make their own choices and be given the same shot everyone else has.

If you want to set up two divisions, let it be the choice of the teams where they play. But let it be two totally separate leagues. If teams want to be in a "B-Fun" league, it should be their choice to play there. If they want to move up to the "A-Win" league, they should be allowed. If an "Win" wants to move down to the "Fun", let them. Not, "You have to win to move up" or "You did not win enough, so you're outta here". Hell - some teams would never get there no matter how hard they try. Even with that, I think it would end up the same as we have now, just in two leagues - top teams and bottom teams.

So much for my stupid ramblings.

pkw1217 · Three Star Guru

my advice for folks in this league who feel that things are not fair is they should seriously consider another form of distraction. possibly something where nobody keeps score,and everybody wins,nobody loses,and no feelings are hurt. let us know how that works out for you. christ fellas, its only baseball. get a freakin grip.

The_Hurricane · Grand Poobah

Brian24 wrote:

Just a quick question to the Two Division proposal. How do you handle new teams entering the league? Who will dictate what division that team plays in. Also, on a much less important note, what about league leaders and statistics? Would they also be sorted by A and B division? Perhaps using an asterisk, e.g. *61?

Brian,

Under my idea I posted, I would think that any "new" team would have to play a year in the "B" division and move up to the "A" if they win the "B" league. However, I like Dennis' idea of allowing each manager to chose where they feel their team should be placed.

As for league leaders, as a web administrator I can tell you that it's really easy to keep statistics separated by divisions so you could easily track both divisions and perhaps even have an "MVP" and "Cy Young" winner for each?

The complications arise with the All-Star game and as a potential manager of a "B" division team, I would advocate more representatives from the "A" division teams on each team

Oh, and one rule we would create in the "A" division would be no bunting in the fifth inning or later of a no-hitter.

The_Hurricane · Grand Poobah

sfgiants wrote:

If you are not having fun during one of your blowouts, which happens infrequently, then leave.

Actually Jim, I sent you a breakdown of the amount of mercy-rule games that happened in the 35+ division and it happened in nearly 1/3 of all games.

And I was unaware that it was a managerial choice. I was always under the impression that (at least in the 35+) it was enforced. The umpires always forced us to stop the game and never left it up to a managerial decision.

The_Hurricane · Grand Poobah

pkw1217 wrote:

my advice for folks in this league who feel that things are not fair is they should seriously consider another form of distraction. possibly something where nobody keeps score,and everybody wins,nobody loses,and no feelings are hurt. let us know how that works out for you. christ fellas, its only baseball. get a freakin grip.

What can something like this hurt? Why not offer it and see what happens? Ever think that there's more than one way to run things?

Ever try thinking a little outside the box?

jreel · Grand Poobah

yes in my mind teams play where they want. not forced. and if you want to move up, move up. or down. at the national tournies teams pick...(they only have to move up if they win too much in the lower divisions, or have a certain amount of ex-pros) . Once the tounry starts no one seems to care that its the National, Amercian , Central, Federal or Mountain divsion. the lowly of teams still come just to play , there choice is always the lowest divsion. others find a place maybe by knoweldge often by the director helping them.

I know too that Conn. had an "A" and "B" system. other MSBL's have had them too. they have recognized that age may not be the only means of separating teams.

Taking our 35's I see some teams that might enjoy playing in and winning an "American" or "B" div. In our 45's, which will no doubt grow to the biggest divsion in just few years, I can already see a definite split in culture if not performance. In the 55's the split will grow too. I think younger teams for whatever reasons are less likely to want to split A-B. I know it wasn't a problem in my days there. Plus the local 30+ Hobbs offers the recreational approach for younger players if they want it.
this being said I still think the dominant culture is to win or get better or both in the 35's. maybe we take temperatures again but last time I did it was a resounding no vote for not splitting up, and even the short-lived experiment to have a "B" playoffs did not work. (although the idea of the staggered playoff Rob mentioned might have been the release point needed to keep that going.)

and to retierate since we started all guns on the competitve end i think that has set the tone for us , maybe its reversible. maybe we can redefine some. lets discuss more...
to me the mercy rule is OK. it doesn't matter either way. in the instance itself i see the point of playing on. but can we work to eliminate so many of the games called by them? thats where we should be thinking.

acemics · Senior Member

I was surprised to hear that almost 1/3 of the 35 games ended in the mercy rule. The question that begs to be asked is, why? I think we all know the answer - talent. Look, if we have 4 pitchers on a team and not one of them shows up, my guess is that they will most likely get a good ass kicking. I've seen that time and again... What's the answer? We all know..

The reason my women's softball league has a 10 run rule is: if there is a 10 run advantage, chances are you played quite some time already so there really isn't an arguement about not playing long enough; with blowouts there is the opinion that more injuries occure - I'm not sure if that's true or not; players do not enjoy getting their asses kicked.. losing 15-5 is bad enough but I haven't heard anyone brag that they ONLY lost 25-3... we don't need to call a game after 3 innings on account of darkness because the score is now 15-0 and then replay the whole game...

The problem of allowing teams to choose their division, is that human nature being what it is, some will choose to play in a recreational division and still beat up teams... there would have to be some type of annual adjustment of moving teams up and/or down. For my softball league, the managers know the talent of each team and we look at records. (This year, a B team made it to the finals (knocking off the second place team in the first round) and another B team took the regular season winner and eventual champions to one hit short of an upset in the first round... on any given day????) But that's still not to say that a last seed A team may not be better than a first place B team as someone else has already brought up - so if you want to keep parity within a division, how do you move the teams around? And we all know that it can be one pitcher that can make major difference.

There isn't any easy answer here... I think the managers need to talk this over and each needs to make his feelings known. I know when we did this in my softball league I was surprised how many of the B teams did not want to NOT play A teams. The women wanted to play against the best and let the chips fall where they may...

If there are 13 teams going into a two division league, that doesn't necessarily gurantee a 7-6 split... I hate to keep referring to my womens' softball league but in our 10 team league we had 6 teams in A and 4 in B. New teams were evaluated for talent and placed into the division that the board (all managers) thought appropriate. We had two teams in '08 that came in as A teams and 2 teams this year that came in as B teams. You have to have flexibility to move teams around - players change and weather or not you want to play recreationally or not, if you are in the B division beating up teams, then the purpose of the A B has been for naught. If on the other hand, the standings are equal - you've reached perfect parity - not a likely prospect.

Artie, I disagree with you. If there are 15 players on a team, there are 15 different oportunities to find players. If as a player you love baseball, chances are pretty good that you have friends who also love baseball... I also disagree with you that good players tend to migrate to better teams. I think the biggest influence for player movement is playing time and friendship. I've changed teams twice and in each instance it was because of playing time. I do know that good players do not enjoy getting their asses kicked on a regular basis..

I think enough opinions have been expressed that there will be some lively discussions at the year end meetings...

Bottom line - this is OUR league and we make the rules... it doesn't matter if one or two people disagree - if the majority is in favor of something, we move forward... lets just do it in a constructive and organized manner respecting our differences and maintaining our focus.

Dennis Scimeca

johnc · Grand Poobah

There is more to it than just good players wanting to be on good teams...............a lot of it has to do with the mindset and intentions of the people on the specific team.

I was on a bad team this past season....we won 2 games and were mercied several times. This was my second year back after a 12 year hiatus...i filled in as a sub for the braves / peppers two years ago and played full time for them the past two seasons. We had close to 20 people on our roster yet struggled repeatedly to get 9 guys to the game and even struggled (and would have failed without an exemption) to put 9 guys on the field for the playoffs. We routinely had people miss games one week, play the next, miss the next etc. We all know that we hit better when we are batting on a regular basis...it's tough to play one game every two weeks and hit well. Then once we start losing a lot there is even less incentive to make the games.

We all have other obligations and will miss some games.....but when you have a team of 20 guys and half of them played 10 games or less it is fair to say they aren't as serious about baseball as the teams with guys who make most of their games....and that will show on the field and in the standings.

This type of team should be in a B division playing against other teams with similar mindsets.

Maybe we could merge the B Division into Dennis's womens softball league? (That one was for you Pete!!)

mgirard11 · Hall of Famer

I have remained on the sidelines for this discussion, for the most part.
There have been some very good ideas put forth. The two division thing could work, as long as you don't force teams to play in either division. The entire reason for the "B" division is that there are some teams that feel that they CAN'T compete under the current system without a bunch of Marxist rules to "spread out the the talent evenly." Let these teams VOLUNTEER to be in the "B" division. If there are enough of them (currently I think the split would be 9-A's and 4-B's), then we move forward with split divisions. Any plan that forces a team to play in either division, gets a big "TWO THUMBS DOWN" from me.
I think the glaring alternative is the system currently under way in the 45+ division. Basically that system is an unbalanced schedule. Give the "B" teams more games with the other "B" teams, and the better teams play each other more often. I think this years' experiment in the 45+ division could be deemed an overwhelming success. They split the teams into 3 skill levels for the purposes of creating a more equitable schedule. There are still two teams in the mix that haven't made great strides in the win column, but if you ask them, they have had a lot more fun and a lot less blowouts. If they don't get better from here, then it is their own fault. The double elimination part of the playoff schedule is very intiguing and could be the way of the future for all divisions. Lets try to tweak things without fixing alot of stuff that isn't broken.

The_Hurricane · Grand Poobah

mgirard11 wrote:

I think the glaring alternative is the system currently under way in the 45+ division. Basically that system is an unbalanced schedule. Give the "B" teams more games with the other "B" teams, and the better teams play each other more often. I think this years' experiment in the 45+ division could be deemed an overwhelming success. They split the teams into 3 skill levels for the purposes of creating a more equitable schedule.

When I set forth my proposal, this was one of my initial ideas. I quickly dispensed it because I think managers could have a serious, SERIOUS problem with an unbalanced schedule determining playoff seeds. If we use this year as an example and use the splits you outlined, would you be able to honestly say that the Shaskys should've been the #2 seed in the playoffs? They certainly won the majority of their games against the rest of the "B" teams and probably would have had the best record amongst those teams and with an unbalanced schedule probably would've won 16 or 17 games.

I can't see a system that rewards the lower teams with that kind of a benefit.

I still think that even if you have your 9-4 split, you could have the the "B" teams play a regular season of 15-17 games and finish their playoffs in time to give the "B" champion a #10 seed in the "A" league championship playoffs. That way, it gives the "B" teams incentive to win their division and it also gives them a shot at a league title.

You could build "interleague play" into the schedule where for two weeks "A" teams will play "B" teams and give the "B" teams a shot at the big boys.

If the 9 "A" teams play a 20 game schedule, each "A" team plays each other twice and gets four other games and if the 4 "B" teams play a 16 game schedule, they'd play each other four times each and they'd have four extra games. Then they'd have two weeks to wrap up a playoff schedule in order to qualify for the "A" league title.

pkw1217 · Three Star Guru

hey jon,
how come you never asked me to come pitch for the braves?
i'd like a chance to put a stop to all this drama and help you guys cut down on losing every game by the mercy rule. maybe then we can get the dancin' girls back up on stage.
hey baseball!

tgrock · Veteran Member

The Shaskys just finished our third year as a team. We started with mostly guys who had been away from baseball for a very long time. Each year we have improved a little bit. This year was our best improvement as far as limiting our numbers in the loss column.

The way I approach this whole thing - this whole culture of CDMSBL presents an incredible challenge to me. The whole point of starting a team is to grow and improve and slowly work our way up the standings list year by year. I love that challenge, just like when I'm in a game with the Marlins or the Pirates and its the 5th inning and the score is 3-1(doesn't matter who is on top in this example, it's gone both ways) and I'm thinking "Wow, we are in this game, it could go either way, and two years ago we didn't even deserve to be on the same field with these guys".

Now I know it doesn't always work out this way - we have our share of blowouts, but I consider it a matter of personal pride to try and scratch my way up the standings over the next few years. If all of a sudden there was an "A" division and a "B" division it would seem like I was somehow underprivileged or something and I had to be given a chance to win more games to make me feel better about myself. I want to win more games against ALL the teams to let myself know that my struggles to improve were REAL and that those extra victories meant something really special!

As far as improving my team, my world view here is one of numbers. The main problem for me is lack of contact and circulation in the world of the 25+ teams that have the players that are feeding into our division. That is the main place that I feel I have a disadvantage - but I can deal with it. If there are teams that are really good, and they seem to have all the good players, well then where are all the great young players from the 25+ division going to go? They are going to go to the better teams and the teams that have contacts and connections with those teams. That's cool - the managers in my division had to do the legwork and the networking to make those connections, they deserve the fruits of their labors.

But there are only so many roster spots on those teams - if all these new young studs are coming up that must mean some old horses on those good teams are going to get squeezed out of playing time, at-bats, innings pitched, etc.

That's where I see an opportunity to recruit some players - because those old horses can come to the Shaskys and be like young studs again and get the extra playing time and join the elite ranks of a team like mine and help to lead us in our quest to get better each year.

I'll keep believing all of this as long as our wins increase and our losses decrease each year. In a 20 game season it won't take long to get to the middle of the pack for starters if we keep improving...

So I'm against splitting off into separate divisions. I wish there was a way to get access to the young guys coming up but I'm a believer in free player movement and I wouldn't want to feel like I got a "handout" so for now I'll keep trying to get better players any way that I can...

Ya Gotta Believe...

QJensen · Grand Poobah

Tony,

I can get you a list of guys who are thinking about playing in the 35's. Then you give them a call and see if they would like to join your team. let me know if this will help.

Q

johnc · Grand Poobah

pkw1217 wrote:

hey jon,
how come you never asked me to come pitch for the braves?
i'd like a chance to put a stop to all this drama and help you guys cut down on losing every game by the mercy rule. maybe then we can get the dancin' girls back up on stage.
hey baseball!

Pete.......one or two games with us and you'd lose your "edge" and become one of the nice guys in the league.......and we both know that shouldn't happen!!

But...if you're serious let me know..................between you and Artie we'd have 100 years of experience!!

sfgiants · Hall of Famer

Hey Rob
To my recollection, a 10-run rule was discussed at a board meeting and it may have been voted in the affirmative. However, ON PAPER, our most recent rules suggest what I said.

Rule 5-14 states:
"5-14. A 10-run mercy rule, after five full inning minimum, is available at the discretion of the manager of the team that is behind.''

This has not been updated on paper, and again, I don't remember if the proposed rule has been adopted. We have no amended copy of rules after the one above, which was on paper in 2006.

JimK

Almost forgot, those are the 35 and 45 rules. Don't know about the other divisions.

-- Edited by sfgiants on Friday 21st of August 2009 09:34:11 AM